Metroid Zelda XOVA
by King of Hyrule
Summary: What would happen if Samus made her way to Hyrule? Well you'll have to wait a few chapters to find out. And now for a really really long chapter where I reveal some information about the Old Man and do a lot of foreshadowing...
1. The Shadows Attack

Disclaimer  
  
Unfortunately, Zelda and Metroid belong to Nintendo and not me. Please do not sue me!  
  
X-OVA  
  
Chapter 1: The Shadows Attack  
  
It was cold that night on SR3Alpha21, but Samus wouldn't know. The Chozo had designed her suit so that it would be heat resistant, and would stay the same temperature as Samus' body. Even if she could feel the cold night, she wouldn't care. The night on SRAlpha21 was nothing compared to the endless winter in the Phendrana Drifts of Tallon IV.  
  
Samus was nearly infamous by now, She had built up a reputation as a planet destroyer, as every planet she stepped foot on seemed to blow up. But she would never end up in the wanted list of any race's police force. Not now she was part of the Galactic Federation. Not with her other reputation of being the only bounty hunter in the Milky Way galaxy to have killed even one Space Pirate and live to tell the tale. Let alone their leader, the dragon known as Ridley, and another million Pirates, some enhanced some not. The later becoming very rare in the war mad race.  
  
But Samus had no intentions of letting this planet be destroyed. Not after the great war of 2631, where the humans were forced to evacuate Earth after an armada of Space Pirates decided that they liked the supply of Uranium that Earth had to offer. The humans were forced to colonize the planet of SRAlpha21. The planet used to belong to the Chozo, but as it was so similar to Earth, the Chozo people left and gave the planet to the humans. They had more than enough planets to live on, even though many of them had been invaded by Space Pirates and subsequently destroyed by Samus.  
  
Samus had just landed. She had been on a killing spree in the Pirates' new territory. You wouldn't have known it was Earth if it wasn't for the shape of the continents. What was once Britain was now covered with a huge glass dome. This is where the Pirates quarantine the Metroids.  
  
Metroid, a small jellyfish like creature without the tentacles. It floats around using some invisible force and eats the energy of any creature that comes too close. What this energy is, no one knows, but without it a person dies. Only the Chozo know what this energy is, as the Metroids are their creation, but they don't want to tell anyone, just in case a Space Pirate spy is listening. The Pirates would use anything as a weapon and once deliberately mutated a lot of their species to see if it would make them stronger.  
  
Samus had booked a room in the Britannia hotel. She would have had to pay if she hadn't been in the federation. The hotel room overlooked the Azimuth Lake, and if you looked hard enough, you might be able to make out Samus' flame orange hunter-class gunship. Samus thought she saw something moving near her ship, which was not uncommon on this planet. But this was different.  
  
She quickly pulled out her helmet from the wardrobe. How she wished she hadn't got changed! She switched to Scan-Visor, which quite helpfully had a magnifying function built into it. Just as she thought, Shadow Pirates. The Shadow enhanced version of the Space Pirates is equipped with a cloaking device, making them invisible to the lazy eye. Samus definitely had no lazy eye.  
  
She quickly pulled on her suit, opened the window and jumped. Her room was quite high up and was not the place where one would normally jump out of a window. But this was Samus Aran, fearless bounty hunter. Armed to the teeth with the Chozos' prized weaponry that most humans can only dream about. One of her suit's abilities was a morph ball. It allowed Samus to roll up in a ball the size of a large football. It also stopped her from feeling the pain as she hit the ground.  
  
She preferred rolling to walking. It was faster and a lot more fun. It took her two minutes from when she saw the Shadow Pirates to get to them. The Pirates turned off their cloaking devices and looked round to see a metal ball that was definitely not there before. One of them walked forwards to this strange invading being and was within a metre of it when it started moving like an egg about to hatch. Samus popped out and kicked it in the face. The others looked like they were preparing an attack until Samus aimed her arm cannon at them. "Under normal circumstances I would arrest anything with a conscience. But your Space Pirates, I make special exceptions for your lot." She said as she charged up her arm cannon. She fired but it didn't hit any of the Pirates. They looked surprised, if Space Pirates can look surprised. How could Samus Aran Miss? Is it possible? The Space Pirates ran towards Samus and prepared another attack.  
  
But she didn't miss. Her Wave Beam, a beam of pure electricity went into the side of her ship and powered up its defence systems. Just as a Pirate was within a foot of Samus the ship fired a hyper beam at each of the Space Pirates killing them in one.  
  
Samus didn't go back to her room for a while. She had to write this in her log book. 


	2. An Improbible Aide

Chapter 2: An Improbable Aide  
  
Link looked around and saw nothing but forest. He must have somehow ventured into the Lost Woods. He didn't remember entering the Woods, and yet he found himself there. His memory was still cloudy after the fight with Phantom Ganon, who had come back to signal the return of Ganon himself. Of course! He had fought Phantom Ganon in the Forest Temple in the Lost Woods! But knowing how he got in wasn't going to help him get out. He could find his way out if he found his way to the Forest Temple. All he would have to do to get there would be to play the Minuet of Forest on the Ocarina of Time.  
  
He played the tune and had the feeling of being warped somewhere, like he normally does when he plays that tune. But he soon realised something was wrong. He would have normally been transported to the Sacred Forest Meadow, but Ganon must have put a curse on the Woods, preventing the effects of his Ocarina playing. He now seemed more lost than he was before.  
  
Anywhere in the Lost Woods you would be able to hear a tune that signified content and peace. The sort of song you could relax to. You only had to listen hard enough to hear it. Link was worried. The spirit of Saria always played the tune in the Woods. If the real Saria, who was sealed away with the other six sages in the Temple of Time, was happy, the song would be loud. On these occasions Saria could be heard at the far corners of the Woods. Link couldn't hear anything, and he was sure he was somewhere in the Wood's centre. Ganon must be behind this. If he had returned then he must have breached the Temple of Time and done something to the seven sages. Link only hoped that Saria was still alive.  
  
Link decided that it was hopeless wandering round this boundless forest. If he was lost, then he would always be lost. Then he came to his senses. He got out his hookshot and grappled to the top of a nearby tree. He looked around and could just see Death Mountain on the horizon, in the other direction to the way he would have gone otherwise. He climbed down and started walking in the direction he was sure Death Mountain was in.  
  
"Your lost, aren't you," said a small voice behind him. Link turned round and immediately took out his sword. There was a wolfos in front of him. Link assumed that it was this wolfos that spoke to him. He ran at the canine beast, wielding his sword in front of him. "Don't bother, I've seen that fail so many times," the wolfos said as it dodged the attack. "Anyway, I wasn't going to hurt you. I need you as much as you need me." Link struggled to understand how he could possibly be dependant on a savage creature. "Why do I need you?" He said to complement his confusion. "Well for a start you don't know which way to go to get out of here." Said the wolfos, "I however have a better sense of smell than some of the royal hunting dogs, so I know exactly which way to go if I wanted to leave here." "But why do you need me?" asked Link "Well if any of my pals knew I was leaving the Woods they would kill me." "Well you know that if you attack me you won't live to tell the tale." And with that he signalled for the wolfos to show him the way.  
  
For the next half an hour the two didn't talk to each other. They had no need, and the wolfos had to concentrate on getting them out. Not that Link particularly wanted to talk to it anyway. He insisted on walking behind, he still didn't trust the creature that was posing as his guide. They were coming to a clearing in the forest, there were two tree stumps in the middle of it, one big one small. Link recognised it as the place where the lone skull kid gave him 200 rupees two years ago. Link knew his way out from here. Without thinking he ran to the exit of the Lost Woods, there was only one way in and out to Hyrule.  
  
Suddenly, he felt a great pain in his lower right leg. He looked at it and there was a deep cut down the length of his leg. In fact there were three parallel cuts down his leg, the sort of cuts that are made by claws. He turned round and saw the wolfos in a defensive position. Link was filled with rage and charged at the wolfos and slashed at its head. But the wolfos was too fast for him; it had dodged the attack and was behind him ready for another attack. Link realised that he would not be able to attack the creature directly unless it was distracted somehow. He looked around for something to use as a distraction, but there was nothing. He tried to remember how he fought these two years ago, but his memory was still hazy. In all the time he was thinking he had been attacked again, this time in the side.  
  
Link remembered waiting to be attacked, and then attacking while the wolfos unleashed a slash that would have hit him. But that was two years ago, with a wolfos that couldn't speak to him. The wolfos once again interrupted his thoughts with a potentially deadly slash, but Link was alert this time. He pulled out his shield and dodged the attack, stepping round behind the beast, and plunged his sword straight into the creatures back.  
  
The wolfos turned round to face Link, the sword still in its back. "I fought well but failed," panted the dying creature. "You must be Link, Hero of Time. If I'd have known, I wouldn't have dared attack you." And with that it fell on the floor, its body limp and dead.  
  
Link pulled his bloodstained sword out of the wolfos' back and left the Lost Woods. 


	3. A New World, or Maybe Not

Chapter 3: A New World, or Maybe Not  
  
* * * Author's note: If I have used the names of characters from other peoples FanFics, it is purely coincidence. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. I just like the names and/or I can't be bothered to find out the 'real' names of the people whose names I have nicked. Oh I've just realised I didn't need to write this, you can't really sue me anyway. None of the stuff on FanFiction is copywrited anyway!!! P.S. anymore author's notes will be in *these*  
* * *  
  
When Samus got back to her hotel room, after updating her log book, she decided to have a long rest in the king-size bed in her room. Earth-time, it was only 15:00, but this planet had longer 26 hour days, and it was 25:00, nearly midnight. If she hadn't been used to Earth-time she would have been asleep within half-an-hour. But her month long killing spree holiday was long enough for her body to get used to Earth-time.  
* * * When I say Earth-time, I am referring to GMT, the time zone Samus went to on her holiday. The time for Earth2 as most humans call it, is the time zone Samus is in at the moment.  
* * *  
  
After an eternity of not sleeping, Samus realised that she must have been so tired that she forgot to take off her suit. She took it off and got back into bed. Half-an-hour later she was just about to drop off when the phone rang. "Bloody phone! The hotel should turn it of at night." She shouted to herself, picked up the phone and screamed, "Who is it and what is so urgent that you must call me in the middle of the night?!" "Sammy girl, what are you talking about?" Adam Malkovitch's voice said calmly on the other end of the phone, "I deliberately called you when you would be awake." "What!!!" "Look at the time, open the curtains. Do anything that will result in you being aware that it is 10:00 your time." "Oh." she said as she opened the curtains and looked at her watch.  
  
Adam Malkovitch was a Federation officer who once supervised Samus on a previous mission. Samus lost contact with him after that. He was the sort of man who would turn up for work one day, then take a year leave on account of his being 'ill'. Even though the Federation was stupid enough to believe him, Samus wasn't.  
  
"Shit, I must have gotten to bed real late last night," cursed Samus, "what is it then?" "We've traced those pirates you found last night, and we think they came from SR3Beta63, but we could be wrong." "What pirates?" Samus asked, trying to sound like she didn't know what he meant, but failing. "Don't think we don't read your log book, some Tseldanian hacker is publishing it on the externet." "And what are you doing to stop it?!" The TV in her room somehow managed to smash, sending sparks everywhere. "What was that?" Samus was pleased that she had accidentally changed the subject. "Just the TV, I'm not watching it anymore." replied Samus, hoping Adam would forget why he phoned. "Oh, fine. Don't go anywhere Samus. I'll only be a second." With that he hung up. "Only a second, eh?"  
  
That second turned out to be half an hour, but Samus wasn't going anywhere anyway. She knew Adam's judgement of time was different to the rest of the universe's, so she wasn't surprised by the wait. "Sorry 'bout that. The scanner just picked up a new planet in the Theta- Region, but it must have been a false alarm." "A Tseldanian scanner giving a false alarm! Now that's not something you see every decade! What makes you think that it was playing up?" "Actually the Chozo gave us one of their old scanners since you last saw this ship. It's still better than that Tseldanian one! What was that about my scanner playing up?" "She wants you to explain the false alarm, you stupid pathetic human!" verbalized a monotonous voice that was not unfamiliar to Samus. "I see the Tseldanians are still hacking into your ships computer!" Laughed, shouted and whispered Samus, somehow all at the same time. "Yeah, its as if they think they rule all of cyberspace! It was probably one of them who made this planet appear on my scanners, then disappear without a trace." "Sounds about right. Their life revolves around hacking into Federation stuff! Yeah, I'll check my scanner later today."  
  
Samus was about to hang up when Adam she heard Adam say something in a rather nervous voice, which was not like the extravert. "How about you come over to my ship later and we can....erm....check the computer together. See if it did get hacked into....err, yeah." "How about no," said Samus defiantly, "If you want to ask me out you need to learn to ask me out properly." "I, err, OK. I'll stay here on my own, with only the Tseldanian hackers to insult me." "If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you so that I come over there, it's not working. Besides, if you really want someone to talk to you can go ask whoever your boss is for a raise. Now go away, unless you have important information to tell me."  
  
With that if she'd had a twentieth century style phone she would have slammed it down, but she didn't. She had to make do with the voice commands, the cheap voice recognition that doesn't understand angry voices.  
  
Samus lay on her bed, wearing only the silk nightgown that Adam bought her last time he tried to date her. That was a week before their mission together; well Adam was on a space station within a few light-years of her, supervising from the safest distance possible. As Samus lay there she realised that Adam was the only person who had ever asked her out, and both times he failed. It wasn't his fault though; Samus wasn't one for receiving orders. This made her scared of dates, boyfriends etc. as because she had never seen a male human until she was 20, she thought that if you go out with anyone, you ended up marring them. And in human couples, the man always seems to be in charge. Samus didn't like that idea at all.  
  
Later that day Samus went to her ship to have a look at the place where Adam said the planet appeared, but found nothing. Nothing, other than the one thing that she did not expect to find. The one thing that would not be picked up by Adam's scanners, as this one thing was discovered by the Chozo after Adam's version of their scanner had been made. The new scanners could see this new phenomenon and were originally going to be able to scan them further to find out how they worked.  
  
What Samus had stumbled on was what the Chozo called Stil'ren or cosmic tunnel, otherwise known as a wormhole.  
  
Samus had nothing on her mind other than to call Adam and enlighten him with what she knew. She rushed back to her room where she left her phone and called him. No answer. She tried again half an hour later. Still no answer. She waited for a while deciding whether or not to call him back again when her phone rang.  
  
"Adam!" she yelled with as much enthusiasm as there was in the universe. "Well Samus," said the voice of Chairman Keaton, the head of the Galactic Federation, "that's just what we called you about."  
  
"Samus,"  
  
"Adam's dead."  
  
* * *  
  
OK, that's it for this chapter. What have we learned so far? Adam is dead; Samus has found a rare Chozo phenomenon; The Chozo favour Samus over Adam, and last but not least, The Pirates are waiting in SR3Beta63.  
  
What is this wormhole doing?  
  
What will the Federation do when Samus tells them about it?  
  
And do the Tseldanians have anything better to do with their lives?  
  
Find out in two chapters time. Meanwhile, what is link going to find now that he has left the Lost Woods? Review and give your suggestions.  
  
P.S. if you tell your friends to R&R this story, I'll post the next chapter sooner. Or I will try to.  
  
* * * 


	4. The Man in the Tree

* * * Okay, so this chapter might seem a bit strange at first to all those Zelda know-it-alls, but trust me, if something doesn't seem true to the game then it's not meant to. All will become clear in later chapters.  
  
Also I would like to explain that the story happens a while after Majora's mask and almost directly after Metroid Prime. And, if I am careful enough, you should be able to see some elements of other games, Zelda or otherwise, woven into the storyline. I'm not going to tell you them now, but I will state for the record that if you see something in this story that you have seen somewhere else, read the next line, especially if you are planning on suing me.  
  
I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS OR IDEAS IN THIS FANFIC! If there is something that you haven't seen before, I've made it up.  
  
Anyway, enough of the shouting; I present to you, Chapter 4: The One after Three  
  
* * *  
  
Chapter 4: The man in the tree  
  
Link stood at the edge of the Lost Woods looking down on the Kokiri village. Everything seemed normal from where he stood, but on closer inspection he noticed that Mido, the self proclaimed leaded of the Kokiri was missing. All the other Kokiri children were sat round a camp fire, toasting marshmallows and telling stories. A loud laugh came from one of them.  
  
Link thought to himself why Mido would miss an event like the annual camp fire, then he stopped and thought to himself, why would the Kokiri have a camp fire now if they had one just last week? He walked down to the fire and was about to ask where Mido was when a group of Kokiri girls ran up to him.  
  
"Are you, are you Link, Hero of Time?" half said, half screamed one. Imagine a Japanese Beckham fan who has just seen David walk past and wants his autograph. "My mum said you saved her from some monsters in the Forest Temple." said another in the same tone of voice. The other girl just stood there and smiled. Link was sure that he had seen all the girls before, and the one who mentioned her mum looked just like Saria, Link's former girlfriend. "Your mum?" asked Link. He couldn't understand why she had said that. Kokiri children were supposed to be immortal and didn't have parents. "Yes, my mum Saria." she replied, "My name is Saria as well, I'm named after my mum. We are all named after our parents."  
  
At this point Link was really confused. Kokiris with parents. Mido, or the son of the Mido he knew, not at a camp fire. "Where's Mido?" he asked. "Who is Mido?" asked Saria. "Didn't he name his son Mido?" "Maybe you should go and talk with the Deku tree." suggested one of the boys who had just decided he wanted to know what was going on. "Yes. Yes that would be a good idea." said Link, and he started walking off towards the Great Deku tree, he wasn't thinking about anything else so much that he didn't realise that the group of girls were following him.  
  
As Link reached the clearing where the Great Deku tree was rooted to the ground, he saw a man, not much older than himself, hanging from his legs on one of the branches of the Deku tree. He looked like he was in a trance or something, or it could have been that he was concentrating on keeping his balance and did not have enough energy to do much else. Link had not seen this man before and wasn't sure at first whether he was friend or foe. That question was about to be answered by one of the Kokiri girls. "Hi Orca!" shouted a voice from behind him that Link knew belonged to Saria. "Hay, Saria! Don't surprise me like that," said the man hanging from the tree who was now in the process of climbing down it. Link considered saying that if this Orca was surprised, what did that make him!  
  
"I see you've met Link," said Orca, in a sort of 'this shouldn't have happened yet' voice, "you are wondering how I know you Link, are you not." Link didn't need to answer; the look on his face did it for him. "I thought so," said Orca, "and by the looks of it you know about the Kokiris you know having identical children, no?" Once again, Links face answered the question without giving him a chance to think. "But, you don't know who I am or why any of this is happening." Orca gave a scornful look at Saria that told her off for not telling Link the full story of things. "Okay Link, I would hazard a guess that you don't know how long you were in the Lost Woods. Am I right?" "Erm, maybe," started Link, he didn't quite know what this 'Orca' was up to yet, "I think I was in there for about a week." Orca laughed, and somehow Link knew that this man could be trusted.  
  
There was something in this man's eyes that Link recognised, even though he had only met him a few minutes ago. He thought he recognised this man. Orca's eyes made him look strangely like Link's old friend Mido, although the rest of him was a different person entirely. The other person, Link did not immediately recognise, although he did know her.  
  
"Who are you?" asked Link. "You know who I am Link," replied Orca, "I am Orca." Link didn't need to tell Orca that he wanted to know more, his face did it for him. "If I gave you enough time you would probably figure out the truth for yourself." "The truth?" asked Link "No, actually. He wants you to..." started Saria, but stopped at a look from Orca. "Go on, Saria," said Orca "what were you going to say?" "I was going to say that you want him to find out the lies," mumbled Saria, "but I realised that it was a stupid thing to say." "Actually Saria, what you said is kind of right. If he finds out what is wrong, then he can use that as a tool for finding out what is right."  
  
"Excuse me," shouted Link, "You're talking about me as if I'm not here! What is going on and who exactly are you?!" "Sorry Link," said Orca, "I forgot you were there for a minute." "Well, are you going to tell him or not?" asked/shouted/'etc'ed Saria. "No, Saria. I am not going to tell him. It is not for me to do the Great Deku Tree's business. Take him there and let the Deku Tree enlighten him with the knowledge that he has missed out on." "Isn't this the Deku tree?" asked Link, who was getting more confuséder* by the second. "No Link, this is not THE Deku Tree. This is A Deku tree." explained Orca. "You mean there's more than one?" said Link. "There has been more that one for centauries," said Orca. "But you have only known about this one," said Saria.  
  
"Where's THE Deku Tree then," asked Link, he knew that if he got any confuséder his mind would explode. "Saria might like to take you." said Orca. "Do I have a choice?" asked Saria "No." "Fine, but we're not going alone." "That is right, I am coming with you," said Orca.  
  
* * * Confuséder adj 1: More confused (Link was getting ~) Copyright Britt&iccer Inline Dictionary See, it does exist!  
  
Next chapter we answer the questions asked in last chapter, if you can remember them that is. If not then tell me, and I won't answer them!  
  
Coming soon to a chapter near you, more words from the Britt&iccer Inline Dictionary.  
  
Questions for two chapters time and beyond: Deku Trees? I thought there was only one! Who is Orca and why does he remind Link of Mido? What happened while Link was in the Lost Woods? What is with this Kokiri Parent thing? Aren't Kokiris supposed to live forever? How long was Link in the Woods?  
* * * 


	5. Great Fox, Elysium and Wildfire

  
Whodunit? The murder, suicide, disappearance, etc. of Adam Malkovitch is argued by Samus. Keaton and Hardy never win arguments so they just sit there and get argued at. NO FLAMES TELLING ME THAT BIT WAS NOT IN ENGLISH PROPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (It wasn't meant to be, or at least that's my excuse)  
  
Also, I will tell you again, I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING FROM THIS FANFIC! DO NOT SUE ME; ALL YOU WILL GET OUT OF IT IS AN ANOYED SOLICITOR.  
  
From now on capitals mean someone is shouting  
  
Chapter 5: Great Fox, Elysium and Wildfire  
  
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S DEAD?" shouted Samus at the worried looking Chairman Keaton and hungry looking Chief Officer Hardy "What happened?"  
"What do people normally mean when they say dead Samus?" asked Hardy in a calm voice. Samus could tell he wanted this over ASAP; Hardy was never calm unless he wanted a sandwich.  
"Well," started Samus, "I wonder. There is a slight chance that you mean the absence of life, but I wouldn't put money on it." Keaton was about to interrupt when Samus gave him a piercing glare. He gave up trying before he even started. "OF CORSE I KNEW YOU MEANT THAT HE WAS DECEACED!" An officer that just walked in was almost deafened. He left in a hurry. "What I wanted to know is do you have any information on how he died, who did it and why?"  
  
Samus was finding it hard to simmer down since her phone call two chapters ago, so when Keaton called her to a 'discussion' between Hardy and himself, she didn't bother.  
Hardy was about to say something but changed his mind and instead put his hand to his mouth.  
"What is it Hardy?" said Samus, somewhere between a raised voice and a shout.  
"Nothing, Samus." he snapped, although not quite as angrily as the verb implies.  
"Spit it out Hardy." ordered Samus to her superior. Hardy quickly swallowed the bit of tuna mayo sandwich that he found in his pocket a few seconds earlier.  
Samus had not meant the sandwich, but now it was gone Hardy was more loquacious  
  
"Samus. We had been trying to call Malkovitch for half-an-hour but his radio was engaged. Our scanners picked up signs of life on his ship that were not dissimilar to that of a Space Pirate or rather a group of about ten of them. We also scanned a small ball of energy near the Pirates. We got through to him as soon as you hung up. All we heard was the start of an explosion followed by his sub-space radio going dead. At the same time our scanners picked up a blast of energy from the small ball of energy. It must have been EMP or something similar as our scanners would not pick up anything from that area for a good five minutes. When we finally got our scanners working for that area again there was just an empty ship with no trace of life remaining other than one hominid corpse. We were unable to tell if it was human."  
"Oh," said Samus, who was now much calmer, "have you sent an..."  
She was successfully interrupted by Keaton this time, "...Away team? No we were hoping that you would lead one to investigate." Samus didn't look pleased. "There is a bounty on the technology the Space Pirates used against your late friend if that helps you make up your mind."  
"And you have salvaging rights to anything you find on your assignment." butted in Hardy.  
That was an easy choice for Samus. Stay at home on her ass doing nothing watching Steven Erwent's Space-Croc hunter, or getting paid for a small investigation followed by a possible chance of avenging a friend's death. But within a few seconds a revelation occurred that forced her to change her mind. She remembered that her hotel room TV was still broken.  
  
Read chapter 3 again, about half way down you will understand.  
  
A few hours later, Samus and a 'specially trained' group of interested volunteers walked into SR3Alpha21's main spaceport in a place called 'New Houston' in New Texas. Samus insisted that they just go to her ship and take it and a few Federation ships from nearby and leave. But Hardy was better at insisting. Honestly, the things that man does to give the Federation a bit of publicity.  
  
Samus took her ship, which she still hadn't named yet, and the other ten took two of the Fed's best ships; Great Fox and Elysium. Samus decided now was the time to name her ship; she had, after all, had it for over ten years now. She named it Wildfire, after its colour, flame orange.  
  
Samus lead the way with Wildfire, and Great Fox and Elysium followed. Elysium was named after the eleventh planet in the Sol System (that's where Earth is), discovered in the late 22nd century. Great Fox was found in the Lylat System with all her crew dead.  
  
It took them two hours to reach SR3Beta63's orbit, where Adam's ship was, motionless like a spy satellite. It should have taken half-an-hour, but when Samus noticed that she had some super-missiles left, she decided to go via Tseldania. She had no super-missiles left when they reached Adam's ship.  
  
"Great Fox, Elysium. This is Wildfire." Samus reported over the radio. "Primary life scans detect nothing out of the ordinary. Atmosphere scanners indicate a high level of methane gas. Suit up everybody. We're going in."  
Samus did a quick scan of the planets surface for life, but found none.  
  
Once in the ship, Samus and team split up looking for tell-tale signs that would help understand what went on here. The crew of Elysium went to look round the cargo bay where the pirates were first seen. Samus and the crew of Great Fox searched the cockpit. No one had brought any weapons other that Samus.  
  
Surprisingly, the ship seemed as if nothing had happened. Samus looked around the cockpit and saw the one corpse that Hardy told her about and made a note in her log book. "Arrived safely at the ship. No sign of life. Found the corpse. It's Pirate."  
One of the crew of the Great Fox summoned Samus over to have a look at something. On the scanner's control panel was a note. A note which Samus recognised as being written in her hurried handwriting. It read "Scan coordinates: x1023432y2352145z1230241." Samus typed the coordinates into his scanner-imager and was greeted with a hologram of the Theta-Region. What Samus did not understand was the one star and it's Earth-like planet that kept appearing for a short time every so often in the very centre of the hologram.  
  
A few hours later...  
  
The crew of the Elysium arrived at the cockpit just after Samus sent for them.  
"Anything?" Samus asked, not expecting anything.  
"Nothing, other that the remnants of an explosion." was the reply she got.  
  
Samus decided that they had seen all they needed to here. They had taken a few photos, copied some data from the ship's computer, retrieved the black box and carried the corpse to Wildfire to be taken back to the Federation labs. There was nothing left for them to do here.  
  
Samus was doing a few preliminary tests of her Wildfire's scanners ready for the complete scan of the Theta-Region. (Don't ask me for the coordinates again, I can't and won't be bothered to type them in again.)  
  
Suddenly, she received a distress call from the Great Fox.  
"Samus," cried the voice on the other end, "we have just been invaded by Space Pirates. Requesting backup..." The line went dead.  
Samus quickly put Wildfire's defences on 'anything-that-moves-other- than-Samus' mode, and ran outside towards the Great Fox.  
The door opened and Samus expected one of the crew but was instead greeted by a Space Pirate. She charged up her last super missile and decapitated it before it had a chance to draw a weapon.  
"Why the Great Fox?" Samus thought to herself out loud. Then it hit her, the black box and ship's data were on the Great Fox.  
She rolled into a ball and boost-balled all the way to the cockpit, where the crew should have been with the precious cargo. It was empty. The ship's auto destruct warning read 0:10.  
She quickly placed a power bomb at the front of the ship. 0:03. The bomb just made a hole big enough to fit through. Samus escaped and ran for her life. 0:00. Samus looked round just as the ship exploded. It was like a blue giant going supernova, in miniature. She was almost hit by a flying piece of the ship but ducked just in time.  
  
Samus saw the four Starwings flying away from the Great Fox. One of the definitely had cargo. There was no point chasing, the Starwings were faster than Wildfire, and Samus knew it. Only Elysium was fast enough to chase after the Starwings.  
  
Samus ran towards Elysium, but before she was close enough it was ripped to pieces by its auto destruct. Samus couldn't believe it; five minutes ago stood two of the Fed's best ships. Now there was just a gaping hole in the temporary docking platform and what was left of the ships was now orbiting the systems star, in ruins and forgotten.  
  
Wildfire had not been touched. It was too antipirateive to let any Space Pirates in.  
  
Antipirateive adj 1: Pirate proof (the ship was ) 2 A person or thing with an extreme dislike for pirates. Copyright Britt&iccer Inline Dictionary  
  
So that's it for this chapter.  
Join us next time for the next exciting instalment, Chapter Six, the one after five. Will Link have explained to him the mysteries that he was presented with?  
Then next chapter, will the corpse prove anything?  
What is with the note in Samus' handwriting?  
And what will she find next time she performs a scan of the Theta- Region?  
  
Coming soon to a chapter near you...  
The reason the story is called X-OVA!!  
(P.S. if you read carefully, the Xing-Ova will come sooner.)  



	6. Random fragments of apple?

At last! After all your weeks of waiting, there exists what you have only dreamt of! I don't know what that is though 'cause I can't read your minds. Oh yeah, there is also the next exiting (sarcastic laugh) instalment in the X-OVA Saga!

Just out of interest, can someone e-mail me with the English translation of this text I got from someone, 'cause I don't spk txt lngo:

"Gvs im a x luk, shts smthng im, e hrs er nd; ZE GEESE ARE FLYING SOUTH AGAIN; lol hh tb bi"

If anyone would like to appear in future chapters, e-mail me with your character's name, a brief physical description, a bit about the personality you want your character to have etc., and I'll see what I can do.

Any suggestions for a plot? E-mail.

Reading this at approximately 5W/s (words per second) and at an average understanifcation level of 83U (Undus), Link will get hit on the head by an apple in about twelve seconds.

Britt & Iccer:

Understandification: Vb: The process by which one understands something. It is measured in Undus.

Undu: Nn: A measurement of speed at which the brain deciphers an improbability to achieve understandment.

Understandment: Nn: When one fully understands a situation.

**_Chapter 6: Random Fragments of Apple_**

"Ouch!" cried Link as an apple fell on his head. "How am I supposed to formulate a scientific law if you drop an apple on my head?!" Saria had just randomly kicked a tree and an apple fell from it.

"I only did it to wake you up, S'Isaac." she said, "While you were sleeping I was calculating the speed and direction of my kick needed to make that apple fall."

A giant marshmallow flew across the sky.

"Meaning?"

A squadron of pigs with machine guns followed, firing sausages at the marshmallow.

"Meaning I asked that King of Hyrule person over there with the laptop to write down that the apple would fall as soon as I hit the tree."

At that precise moment, the King of Hyrule started typing something into the laptop.

"This is really rubbish?" questioned Link.

"What?"

"It's what that random road sign over there says," explained Link. "I think I'll start again?"

"What does that mean?" asked Saria.

The apple that randomly hit Link randomly turned into Orca and started speaking a strange language.

"it mns u r aslp dngbt. wkup! hh tb lol. ZE GEESE ARE FLYING SOUTH."


	7. Fragments of Time

Ok, back to the land of the relatively sane...

Unblur: Vb: For a blurry thing to become not blurred; ing: something is unbluring when it starts to unblur.

**_Chapter 7: Fragments of Time_**

Link woke up. Saria was looking at him.

"What just happened?" asked Link, realising he was being carried

"Ah, your awake." said Orca, his carrier, "We were walking in an orchard when an apple fell on your head and you lost consciousness. I picked you up and carried you this far, but seeing as your back in the land of the living..." Link fell on the floor.

"Ouch, again" cried Link.

The three walked on. They were in a place unknown to Link; it looked a bit like Hyrule field, but smaller and without the LonLon ranch or Hyrule castle.

They had started on their journey from the Kokiri forest two days ago. They had travelled south to Lake Hylia. There they stopped the night. From Lake Hylia they travelled east through a dense forest. They were now in the land of Holorania, having spent the night on the other side of the forest in a cave.

In the morning they had travelled south to an orchard. It was here that Link was hit with the apple. From there the three had travelled south-east to reach Holorania Field. They travelled south from there to reach the town of Lyoforwent. They stayed in an inn there for that night.

Link woke up in the morning, he was still tired after all the walking of yesterday. He had a hangover after the three pints he downed in one (technically speaking though, he downed them in three but that isn't really a phrase yet, although I'm trying to persuade Brit & Iccer...). His eyes were a bit blurry and he couldn't quite see where he was. He walked in the direction of Saria's bed, surprising himself in that he remembered where it was. Apart from the three pints, that was the only thing he could remember from the other night.

"Tibs the bed by the window!" she said as soon as they had entered the room.

It was getting light outside and Link's eyes were unbluring. Then he saw it.

It wasn't obvious to him before when he was semi-blind, but now his 20:20 vision was restored he could see it clearly. In the middle of Saria's bed, amidst the untidy sheets and duvet was an empty space where Saria should have been.

Link turned round to see the same was true of Orca's bed.

He turned and looked out of the window at the clock tower.

"Hyrule should have had one of these,"

It was six in the morning. He knew because being a digital clock, the clock tower said whether it was Am or Pm. Also, it wasn't likely to be getting light at 6:00pm.

Link quickly changed and rushed down the stairs not noticing - and consequently bumping into - Saria.

"What took you so long?" asked Saria, "We said half five to wake up, I was just coming to see if you were still asleep. What's the matter Link? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Link was white and breathing heavily.

"I...Its just that...when I got up...your bed was...empty.........How do you know...what I look like...when I've seen a...ghost?"

"Definitely still you then."

About an hour later, Link, Saria and Orca set off on the last part of their journey. The Deku tree they seeked was in a cave at the top of a mountain. The three had to climb up a waterfall near the top to reach the plateau where the entrance to the cave was. There was a guard at the mouth of the cave, he looked aggressive so Link charged at him, Master Sword outstretched. He was inches away when the guard pulled out a shield.

Link hit the shield and was knocked out for a few seconds. The guard looked up.

"Orca," he started, "there seems to be a little boy trying to kill me. Shall I dispose of him?"

"Don't worry, Stalos," replied Orca, "he's with me. We came here to consult with the Deku tree."

"Ok, but I can only let one of you in at a time. And you can only ask one question each" said Stalos

Orca was the first in. He asked:

"How was the Triforce made?"

The Deku tree replied with:

"Din, Nayru, and Farore created the world. Din, with her strong flaming arms, created the red earth. Nayru, poured her wisdom into the land and gave it order. Farore created the creatures that would uphold that order, (namely the Kokiri children etc.). Once their endeavours were completed, they returned to the heavens, leaving behind the sacred triangle, the Triforce, at the point where they exited the world. This area became known as the sacred land."

Saria was next. She asked:

"How did Link save Hyrule from Ganon?"

The Deku tree responded with:

"After Link had opened the door to the sacred land he was sealed away for seven years. Ganondorf seized the Triforce, and made his wish.

Zelda went into hiding and Ganondorf Quickly conquered Hyrule. The sages of Hyrule fell into a state of sleep, unable to contend with Ganondorf's evil.

Seven years later Link was awakened and went on a quest to re-awaken the sages.

Zelda helped Link in his quest by appearing to him as Sheik and teaching him songs that would take him to the temples gates.

After awaking the sages, Link had to confront and defeat Ganondorf. Link easily beat Him, but Ganondorf's tower collapsed, With Link and Zelda barely escaping with their lives. Ganondorf was not dead however, and used the Triforce of Power to transform into Ganon, a huge hideous beast of incredible power.

He had to use the light arrows given to him by Zelda to freeze him, then hit his sensitive tail. Finally Link struck down Ganon with the Master Sword and sealed him away."

Link was the last to enter. He was about to speak but the Deku tree interrupted him.

"Link, Hero of Time. You are destined to be the last person to ask me a question. Use it wisely."

Link asked what had happened while he was in the Lost Woods

This is what Deku tree explained:

Seven years after Link returned from Termina he went into the Lost Woods again to look for Navi. After what he thought were a few weeks, he left. He had actually been in the woods for three thousand years. However, due to finding out information that he should not have found out, his memory was altered by STiCAoGIOB.

In the intervening time, the Kokiris mysteriously started aging, albeit at a rate much slower than Hylians; in two hundred years they had aged fifteen years. By the time the Kokiris realised that they were now physically forty-two they realised that they would have to produce offspring.

As there was the same number of males as there were females it was easy for the Kokiris to find a mate, except that Fado, one of the girls who one no-one would miss, died in her sleep suddenly. As Mido was the only male without a woman to fertilise, he left the forest in search of someone he could settle down and start a family with.

All the Kokiri women produced twins; the males were carbon copies of the fathers, likewise with the females. Their Deku tree told them that the children should be named after the parents. Within forty-two years, all the original Kokiris were killed by whatever killed the first.

Meanwhile, Mido had found and married a woman from Kakariko Village called Anju. She was a cucco breeder who fell in love with him at first sight.

About five years later Anju became pregnant and Mido became ill. His last request was for the baby's name to start with 'O' if male or an 'S' if female. These were Mido's favourite letters

Coincidently the Sheiken words "Orsilo" and "Sorsilo" mean male and female respectively, although Sheiken was only spoken by the castle guards and some of the royal family.

Mido died before he had a chance to find out what the baby was.

They produced twins.

Shortly after the births, STiCAoGIOB realised that Anju knew too much and so her memory was altered."

Britt & Iccer has been replaced by Encyclopaedia Galactica as the main repository of all knowledge. This is mainly due to the fact that there was only one copy of Britt & Iccer and it was engraved in the slice of cheese that the writer accidentally put in a sandwich. KoH publishing apologise for any convenience caused.

STiCAoGIOB: Abrv. the Space-Time Continuum Association of Gods, Immortals, Omnipotent Beings; STiCAoGIOB are an organisation set up by the Q (not to be confused with Q-Borg) that help people to travel through time, remind species about the universal fine of €100,000,000,000 for unauthorised evolution, and basically run the universe.

Q: See Q

Q: See Q

€uro: Universal unit of currency formed on Solaris3, known to its inhabitants as Earth. The €uro was widely accepted as the universal currency in the late 25th century AD2 Solaris3 years (Stardate 29.07.12684 to be precise.)

Tune in next time for a full gigawarpological scan of the theta region.

Tune in the time after next time for an unexpected arrival in Hyrule.


	8. Theta Region

Welcome back, O loyal reader, to the OVA of all Xs.

I present to you the final chapter in the X-Bunch. After this we will be entering the O-Bunch. You'll understand when you finish reading this Bunch.

**

* * *

**

Chapter Eight: Theta RegiΘn

_He sat in the pilot's seat of his ship. He was waiting for something, someone. The Space Pirates were aiming a photon rifle at his head trying to get him to reveal its location to them._

_He did not tell them. He knew the price he would have to pay for his silence._

_There was an explosion that made the ship sway slightly._

_He blacked out._

* * *

Keaton sat at his desk. The HoloProjector showed the Alpha Centauri station in high orbit above the planet known as Nemesis. The space surrounding it was empty. 

Hardy walked into the room carrying a Subway box and wearing a concerned look on his face.

"Chairman," he started, he sounded like he had just run a marathon.

"Any reports from Samus, Hardy?" the chairman interrupted.

"None yet Sir."

"Fine," he mumbled to himself, "what do you want that warrants you to come here in such a rush?"

"I was just coming to ask how many ships we are expecting so as I can get someone to ready the docking bays."

"There she is now," said Keaton looking at his HoloProjector, not hearing a word of what Hardy had said.

"Just the one?" asked the Chief Officer.

"No the other two should be arriving any time now. Go and loose them in."

But the other two ships never came.

* * *

Wildfire entered through the force field into Bay One. On board were Samus, a corpse, some coordinates, Malkovitch's ship's Black Box and a 4½ inch Floppy Disk. 

Hardy was standing at the end of the loading ramp ready to greet her. The highest ranking officer greeted the arrival in the standard modus operandi, but the warrior did not, as was usual for her, follow the protocol this time.

Hardy opened his mouth as if to say something but Samus was quicker off the mark than the Chief Officer.

"Skip the formal briefings Hard; I need to do something important."

With that she pushed past the sandwich-filled Chief Officer and disappeared through the door to the transport.

Hardy was wondering why Samus was in such a rush, but she was not one to be questioned and Hardy was not one for having his lunch a second time round. That is unless of course if it was slushy and covered in hydrochloric acid.

_

* * *

The 24 letters were written from memory. He was laughing at the irony of the situation. _

* * *

Samus walked into the lab and handed the paper to the technician. She asked him to see if there was any way of testing when it was written. He said that he would see what he could do. 

As she walked out the door she told him that there was also some stuff being unloaded from her ship. That needed testing as well.

She then went and made a cup of coffee and casually made her way up to the bridge. Keaton was waiting for her. He looked happy to see her. The look of happiness changed to an almost-disgust when she asked him to dispose of her empty coffee cup.

Samus sat down in the Chairman's chair, never one to obey the rules if at all possible. The 'almost-' was removed from Keaton's visage in an instant; he had steam coming out his ears until Samus started to give her report.

* * *

The scientists were working hard. So far they had guaranteed that the writing was written an hour before Samus arrived. 

There was also Aran DNA all over it.

"Ships do not just blow up, Keaton!" shouted Samus, "I'm telling you, there were space pirates in that sector! I saw them, killed a few too!"

"Then why didn't your computer detect them."

"I don't know. They must have developed some new technology, or something."

"Samus," Keaton started. He scratched his back a bit to kill time, hoping Samus would have suddenly gained a way of controlling her temper. He carried on, giving up all hope, "What would Space Pirates want from your investigation anyway?"

Suddenly a technician came through the door. "I don't know," said the man who's name-tag read 'J. Smith', "but I suspect it has something to do with this."

He held up the paper.

"What's this?" asked Keaton.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention. I need to borrow the station's scanners."

* * *

Samus input the coordinates into the NaviScan. She had got the technicians to wire up Wildfire's scanners to the station's. The NaviScan was displaying a message that said 'connecting to remote scanning protocols…' There was also a cheesy fairy sprite bouncing round the screen. 

"Note to self…" Samus thought, "Remove the head of whoever programmed this piece of junk."

She read the tiny writing at the bottom of the screen: 'NaviScan© Copyright 2700 Kevin O'Haley programs' see what I've done there? Yes, yes, oh forget it. It's not that important anyway

'Uncharted planet in region...zoom in? Y/N'

Samus pressed Y.

'Sending satellite………data ready.'

* * *

Samus was preparing her ship for a journey to the uncharted 'Planet Z' as Keaton called it. 

"X has been over used. We need something new and innovative, like Z."

The chief science officer came up to Samus with a report on the final tests.

"The corpse was Pirate at some time. The disk contains nothing useful and Malkovitch doesn't plug his black boxes in. I thought you would know that by now. Where you off to?"

"Tell Keaton I'm off to Z."

The science officer was clearly confused but left anyway assuming the Chairman would understand Ms Aran.

Wildfire was in orbit. The scanners were testing the atmosphere and the NaviCom was mapping the surface. All was ready for landing.

She did not here the warning siren…

* * *

Warning siren? 

Can't tell you yet.

O-Bunch?

You'll see next time you read a Metroid chapter.

What has happened to the wormhole?

Maybe it fell down a black hole?

Next chapter: an unexpected arrival in Hyrule…

After that: Samus on 'Planet Z'

After that: who knows? (Me!)


	9. An Uninvited Guest

Hola todos…

Is it that time again? Of course it is; you wouldn't be reading if it wasn't.

Sorry about last chapter, FanFiction doesn't like my horizontal rules…

I have to be careful what I write now, my English teacher is reading this stuff and I don't want unnecessary conduct marks for inappropriate language…

Change of plan, I don't really care.

1123571321

_Chapter Nine: The Uninvited Guest_

It had been two weeks since Link had returned from his journey to The Deku Tree.

His first port of call had been the Gerudo valley, purely because he thought they would know if Ganondorf the Evil was back. Except when he got to the valley, it was deserted. The Gerudos had obviously become an extinct race. And if the Gerudos were no more then Ganondorf was probably still sealed away. They left a lot of rupees behind though. After that reversal of fortune he had stayed in the forest for a while.

He had locked himself in his house for a while to think. He had been sent to the future by a curse in the forest, said The Deku Tree after chapter seven, if he wanted to go back to the past he only had to find where he was sent to the future and play the Song of Ages, which the tree had taught him.

Orca, being the smartest one in the village was the person Link sought out to ask if it was worth doing.

"Link, are you sure you want to go though with this? After all, the timelines will mess up. I will no longer exist."

Both teens were amazed at how calm Orca was being about his own inevitable death, or rather his de-existence.

"Yes," replied Link "which is why I want you to come with me."

Later that very day Link set off into the forest. When Saria II saw him enter she asked him where he was going. He simply said: "Home, Saria. Home."

As soon as he got to the spot where he met the wolfos he got a tingling sensation all through his body and he knew that was the spot. Of course, he didn't yet know that was where he met the lupine beast.

Although Orca knew he would not be able to return to Link's era with him. But he still wanted to see him go.

He had told Link that he would stay in the village with the other Kokiri.

'Hang on a second!' thought Orca to himself 'If Link goes back and changes the timelines, the timelines would have changed by now. They would not need to wait for Link to remove himself from the firing path of the cannons of time. Either Link never made it back, or the timelines didn't change.

As the latter was the less possible of the two, Orca decided he must go back with Link.

He quickly headed to the part of the forest in which he kept his prise possession away from prying eyes. In this particular grove was the pedestal in which the Legendry Master Sword was kept.

After removing the blade from the stone, Orca remembered that Link's sword was very similar, if not the same as the one now in his grip.

What must have happened in the near future dawned on Orca that instant. He was having difficulty putting the tenses together properly, but Link is dead, sometime way back in the near future.

Link had played the song of ages a good five minutes ago but nothing had happened. The teen hanging in the tree just above him had noticed that too.

"You called?" asked the wolfos who had just appeared out of nowhere. "Oh, you again. You don't remember me do you?" The creature lifted a clump of fur to reveal a scar.

If there were 1920's gangsters in Hyrule, Link would have said the beast spoke like one of the guys with the big guns.

"You!" Link exclaimed, implying the rest of the sentence.

The wolfos was more apt in forming his clauses.

"You!" It replied, "The one that can't take a joke."

"I should have cut you up into little pieces when I had the chance."

The creature looked surprised.

"They said They'd leave your memory intact." Said the wolf; his look of surprise having being studied slightly harder had revealed that it was actually confusion.

The wolf then proceeded to remove his head, J. K. Rowling's Sir Nicholas style.

All it said then was "My name is Remus, I'm dead and I'll be your tour guide for this century."

Meanwhile, 1000 years earlier…

Kaboomy! The meteor hit the surface at 300m/h causing a huge plume of dust to be expelled over hundreds of metres.

It was an unfortunate goron who, on closer inspection, found out the truth that this was no meteor. This was alive. Like a giant, scaly, semi-metal bird.

He couldn't make anymore observations as the bird's head raised and burnt the goron to a crisp.


	10. Z for Zed

"Z for Zaphod Beeblebrox" was among the list of potential titles for this chapter, but as I am not sure I spelled it right, it won't be. For a few seconds I also reasoned that it would mean typing extra disclaimers before reasoning that if it was a copyrighted name, the copyright owner is dead; as far as I'm aware, the evil sausage witches of Betelgeuse have not resurrected him.

However, the main reason it was not was that Zaphod does not appear in this chapter.

_Chapter Ten: Z for Zed_

The NaviCom beeped in rapid succession for a few seconds before displaying the message:

Continental drift occurring at super high speed

………………………

Re-mapping surface

………………………

Re-map complete

Samus did not see the message. A few minutes earlier the warning sirens on Wildfire blared at around 80Db a few seconds before a wandering asteroid hit its hull, knocking Samus unconscious. Wildfire had automatically set a landing course. However, the continent that Wildfire was set to land on had suddenly disappeared.

Wildfire altered the course for a small island in the middle of the new ocean. We shall get back to the island later.

For now I would like to mention that if Wildfire's onboard computer had a human body, she would have shrugged at the fact that she had detected several large eddies in the STC (space-time continuum). However, if she also had a human mind to complement her body, she would be getting very worried.

Eddies, for those of you who have not taken a 23rd century astrophysics lesson like me (or, like me have not taken a 23rd century astrophysics lesson), are basically holes in the STC. They are similar to wormholes in that they can transport a person, car, sausage or small green fury thing from Alpha Centuri, from point A in space-time to point B. They are normally caused by the Q - who mortals are not supposed to know about - or more often they are results of the timelines adjusting.

The term 'eddie' was unwillingly first used by a small fury thing from Alpha Centuri, who, on noticing one at the edge of his vision, was run over by his friend Edward Petitfur IV. The term travelled down the wormhole-esque phenomenon and when someone the other end saw it and asked it what it was. The word 'Eddie' written in something similar to Comic Sans MS floated out and dematerialised into the vibrations in the air which matched a semi-drunk Frenchman saying the words: "This audio phenomenon is brought to you by MWBC." followed by a short pause and then an Alpha Centurion saying, or rather screaming the word "Eddie" as if he were about to be run over by his friend Edward Petitfur IV in a Fusion Roller™ (steam rollers are like so cliché/last millennium/coal powered/boring/insert adjective here).

Anyway, back to the island. In the time I was doing all my encyclopaedic defining, Wildfire had landed on the island I was going to get back to. It was not the largest island in the ocean; about the size of a dozen pitches for which the sole purpose of which is for playing the old Earth game football, which died out toward the end of the 21st century when the English team Aston Villa held the record of 15 years best team in the world. Because of this, everyone else got bored.

The island was on closer inspection actually two islands connected by a thin wooden bridge near sea level that was supported by dangerously placed rocks. There was also a rope bridge connecting the two islands' mountains about 100m above. This seemed the only way to reach the forest, to which I will come back to later, at the summit of the larger island.

On the major island was a small village which consisted of a few buildings, one of which was situated half way up the mountain and seemed to have a garden full of large black pigs. If Samus was conscious at this point, that would be all she would see as Wildfire descended into a clearing in the forest that I couldn't be bothered to stay away from.

The forest was in the crater at the top of the mountain and the bridge that connected it to the other mountain was broken in the middle; the perfect hiding place for a spacecraft.

A few hours passed before Samus came to. She looked out of the two inch glass that separated her from the outside world. She saw that she was in some sort of forested area. Looking closer, she saw that it was in a sort of crater. Checking the NaviCom she saw that she was about 150m above sea level. She pressed a button on her chronograph and her suit formed itself around her. She stepped into the circle and the circular iris door above her opened. She was lifted up through the open hatchway and jumped out onto the planet's surface.

Her danger meter reading zero percent, she performed an atmospheric scan and got Wildfire to cloak itself and hover above the island and map it for her.

The monitor inside her helmet read:

O2 - 21

CO2 - 0.01

N - 79

Taking off her helmet and retrieving from it the NaviCom Mini she stored in the pocket behind the head, she retrieved the transmission from Wildfire of the map. She displayed it with the small touch screen pane of thin, hologram projecting glass in her hand.

She planned out a route to the outside of this cave from the hologram and stored it in a slot in her left arm. She pressed a button in her helmet and it dematerialised.

On exiting the cave she saw just how isolated this island was. It was like an iceberg in the middle of a clear blue sea.

She also noticed that the bridge that was her only way down was broken in the middle and that in the village at the bottom of this mountain people were gathering, pointing in her direction. She quickly activated the cloaking device, thankful that she had allowed the GF techs to add it to her suit and Wildfire.

After a while of deciding on how to get down, she decided to risk crossing the bridge. She could jump the gap; it was just a question of whether the bridge could support the impact.

It couldn't.

The look on the villagers' faces was that of surprise. Samus could not see this as she was submerged a few metres underwater. She surfaced and swam towards the shore. Standing up now she disengaged the cloak, looked at the villagers and received a transmission from Wildfire.

"Just thought I'd tell you that I've detected a large eddie in your region," said the synthesized monotonous voice of the computer. "I am adding its location to your map."

It was located on the other side of the village.

"I detect that the other end of it is in the same location about a thousand years in the past"

Samus saw the eddie. It was a purple leather sofa and it was coming her way. For some reason she sat on it as it came into close proximity.

A few seconds later she disappeared, much to the surprise of the villagers, and sailed yesterwards on the sofa.

A little old man walked out into the middle of the confused people.

"Sturgeon," he said "my fellow Outset Islanders, does anyone have any idea what happened there?"

He stepped out only because the metal woman rang a bell in his mind.

His name was Orca.


	11. Meanwhile

_Chapter Eleven: Meanwhile…_

The old man stood on the roof of the castle safe in the knowledge that he and the other were the only ones who knew he was here. The other was the only one who was wary of the plan.

The flawless scheme was his own thinking and he had suggested it to the old man a few chronological months ago.

The basic gist of it was that if either of them was killed, a time paradox would be created resulting in the dead one not being there in the first place to get killed, and so wouldn't. The advantage of this was that the one that got killed, and therefore didn't, would be able to sneak up on the killer and get revenge for being killed and therefore not getting killed.

* * *

A hundred metres below and about five miles away a teenage boy dressed in green departed from the lost woods completely unaware of the events that fate had laid out in front of him. He knew something was going wrong somewhere, but as he had found out a few weeks ago in the distant future, it was solved. 

Link's original fear of Ganon returning had subsided and he was now looking forward to a peaceful few months.

What he was not expecting as he entered into the Kokiri village was a familiar voice behind him.

"Link!" called the voice. "Link!"

He turned round to see Orca holding what looked like another Master Sword.

"Link, I changed my mind. It didn't work sending just you back."

"What do you mean?" asked Link, not really surprised at Orca's appearance.

"The timelines didn't reset, Link. The scriptures still say that the pig man has a two hundred year reign!"

"Then that means…"

"Yes! You can't face him alone and win."

"I was thinking more along the lines of he has returned."

* * *

The two teenagers rode across Hyrule field on Epona. Orca didn't know where they were going, but link seemed to know. Link was taking them to Death Mountain. 

If Orca was right, then they both needed some training if they were to fight Ganon.

Orca had fallen asleep by the time they reached Goron City. Link woke him up and explained the plan. They were to get some training today then rest in Kakariko. Over the next few days they would build up their strength training with the Gorons and keep a look out for any sign of Ganon and his minions.

(A.N. ish)

For those people who don't know, the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines Gorons as: a race of people from the land of Hyrule. They live at the summit of Death Mountain.

Gorons are so hard, they eat rocks for breakfast. Don't ask why.

* * *

For a whole month there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Then there was about two weeks with even less signs. 

After about a few days, the two were beginning to speculate that Ganon would not show up this century.

Then one afternoon there was something that made them think otherwise.

Link was training with Darunia, the leader of the Gorons, in the crater of the volcano when all of a sudden there was an explosion in the distance. They both looked to where it came from – Hyrule castle.

For a moment there was nothing. Then the whole castle collapsed in on itself, creating a huge crater where it once stood tall. Link could see from where he was standing that the crater was full of molten lava.

A few moments later and a huge metal fortress was rising out of the hole. Link recognised it from when he first slew the evil beast. But the mighty towers didn't stop there. They kept on rising as if something else was pushing them upwards. This was because something else was pushing them upwards.

At this point the towers were roughly three times higher than Hyrule castle once was.

The gargantuan colossus of a structure was wider at the base now. It was now pushing up the surrounding land, which avalanched its way down the palace's mammoth sides.

It eventually stopped, having demolished Hyrule Castle Town and the river flowing past towards Lake Hylia.

If this wasn't Ganon's work then neither Link nor Orca nor Darunia could think who else it could be.

* * *

The building when seen from the top (assuming it was possible to get that high) was shaped in a huge triforce. There were three metal towers, each as high as the late Hyrule Castle, and one titanic round black stone adverbfully evil looking adjectiveful tower in the centre. Above two of the three small, or rather less huge towers were golden spheres of light. The other had a green one. 

If Link knew what a satellite dish looked like, he would have said that the three towers had a similar structure on top, all pointing towards the summit of the mountainous structure. The two with golden spheres hovering above them had pure white beams of something coming out.

The symbolism built up to a point where Link realised that Ganon needed him dead in order to make the other sphere golden.

Link was the bearer of the triforce of courage. He could only assume that Ganon, the bearer of the triforce of power had seized the triforce of wisdom from princess Zelda, most likely raping and killing her in the process.

* * *

The old man and the other stood atop the summit of the monstrous construction and looked down on their kingdom. 

Soon the old man would send out the shadows the other had provided him with to seek and capture the final bearer. Only then would the other be able to power up the vast machine at the heart for which this giant palace was constructed.

Then their kingdom would be infinitely expanded.


	12. PSA PostSofa Analysis

_Chapter Twelve: PSA (Post-Sofa Analysis)_

The forest was dark. Not because it was night; it wasn't, but because the trees were so close together that the sun could not see what was going on in there despite its best efforts. It decided to shine down with full force on the fields a few miles away instead.

The purple leather sofa with a Harrods price tag did not look out of place to the local inhabitants even though it had only been there for several seconds and didn't look to have been anywhere else before. The reason for this was that there were no local inhabitants in that part of the forest. Even the slime that accumulates in most forest soil had packed its bags and moved to brighter parts. The only things in the forest other than the irrational piece of furniture were the trees, but they are taken for granted, and the irrational intergalactic bounty hunter sitting on the Harrods sofa, which shouldn't have been there.

Samus stood up and then decided to sit down again. There were however two major problems with this decision: one, the sofa she had previously been sitting on was no longer there; two, the sofa she had previously been sitting on was no longer there. Although that is only one major problem, it was perhaps such a big problem that it deserves to be mentioned twice.

There was however a convenient tree root in roughly the same position as the sofa and Samus sat on that for a few seconds before realising that it wasn't the sofa.

Quite why she had sat on the sofa 1000 years in the future was as unknown to her as why there was a sofa for her to sit on 1000 years in the future.

Samus' helmet was reading her brainwaves at that moment and, noticing that she was talking about the future in the past tense, tried to correct her grammar before she deactivated that feature she didn't even know she had.

* * *

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.

A.N. Sorry, it kind of fitted and I couldn't resist myself.

* * *

The Other was perched on a pillar watching the Old Man, who was pacing up and down on the circular platform suspended to the side of the huge building codenamed 'The Palace'. The Old Man had been pacing for over half an hour now, maybe longer as the Other had only been awake that long.

Suddenly there was a beeping sound coming from near the Old Man and he pulled out of his pocket what looked like a mid 21st century mobile phone. It had two aerials protruding from each end between which there were hovering small blue balls.

The Old Man answered it and then said nothing for about five minutes other that short acknowledgements and affirmatives.

"Has she now?" enquired the Old Man, "She will not cause much of a problem as long as she doesn't make contact with the kid." There was silence for a short while. "Yes Your Highness," he said in a less authoritative voice, "my partner will take care of that. He already has experience of her weaknesses; he should be able to do that with no problems…"

With that, he put the phone away and the Other flew down to meet him.

"What does His Highness require of me?"

* * *

About an hour later, while walking through the forest, Samus came to a clearing. For a second she thought she heard something on the opposite side and so hid behind a tree root to listen. Now she could hear clearly what she thought she heard was what she dreaded it was. Her scanners confirmed that the whispers she could hear were in Zebestian, the main language of the homeworld of the Space Pirates.

She stuck her head up and saw the silhouettes of five Pirates and the glowing red eyes of their leader, the infamous Ridley. Samus didn't have time to wonder why they were here as she realised that they were silent. One was looking in her direction.

She quickly scanned them and hid behind the root again. Her scans revealed that they were all Pirate Commandos and were armed with phazon cannons, energy swords, force shields and a pack of sandwiches.

Ridley soared into the sky and shouted the Zebestian for 'attack' before flying south-west.

The Pirates, who had been charging up their cannons, joined barrels and fired a ball of phazonic plasma of diameter 2m at the tree that had once been Samus' protection, vaporising it in an instant. Expecting Samus to be there still, they ran to where there once was a tree and swiped with their energy swords, hitting nothing.

Samus stepped out from behind a tree at the other end of the clearing and charged up a Super Missile.

The Pirates deactivated their shields, thinking they must have vaporised their target with her hiding place.

She pressed the button to switch to Seeker Missiles, thankful that the GF technicians had modified it to allow it to fire multiple Super Missiles as well as just regular ones. She waited until the Pirates had turned and seen her before firing, killing them all.

* * *

"Is it done?" the Old Man asked the Other as he landed next to him.

"I lost communications with the minions on the way back." replied the Zebestian Dragon known as Ridley, "I can only assume the worst."

"Oh well," started the Old Man, Ridley giving him a confused look, "History says I kill her, and after my experience, I don't like arguing with history."

* * *

Link awoke. For a second he didn't know where he was, but after a while he recognised the features of Death Mountain where he had been training for the past year. That strange looking bird flew across the summit again and he felt the same chill that he did last time he saw it.

Judging by the position of the sun, he had only been asleep an hour. He was a very heavy sleeper and usually slept for about six hours. There were few things that would wake him so soon and he was trying to work out what it was this time.

He was getting fragments of his dream and within a minute he could envisage the whole thing:

He was on top of the old Hyrule Castle, looking down on the kingdom. Farore, the goddess of courage, appeared next to him and for a moment said nothing.

Beautiful, wasn't it.

Link didn't respond, he simply stared down at it. He nodded and the deity continued.

I come to give you a message, to guide you in your upcoming quest to restore Hyrule to what you see before you.

Once again, Link didn't respond.

From forth the forest will come a woman clad in armour stronger than even the metal of your blade. She is here to help you to defeat the enemy whose domain has recently become. Her weapons are stronger than those you wield and she has experience of the enemy. She cannot enter The Palace alone, however. You have to help her to enter. Orca will not be needed, he has been sent home to serve another destiny.

This time Link was about to respond.

Speak not, for I know your thoughts. You wish to know what I refer to as The Palace.

Link nodded.

You have seen it. It stands tall at the location where we now stand.

Realisation dawned on Link and he decided to ask of the deity one question.

"Is it the work of Ganon?" he asked calmly.

It is not my place to reveal that knowledge. The higher powers will not allow it. Reading his thoughts and referring to the higher powers she added, I cannot tell you.

That had been when Link awoke.

Link ran through it in his mind several times and looked around. Sure enough, he noticed that Orca was no longer there and had left no sign of leaving.

He slept again for about five minutes, receiving a vision that told him that this was no time to sleep. He gave up on that and headed down the mountain. He planned on re-supplying himself potions and ammo, maybe fairies-in-a-bottle if Kakariko Bazaar had any in stock.

He didn't realise just how much of an important decision this would be.


	13. A for Amalgamation, A for Annihilation

_Chapter Thirteen: A for Amalgamation, A for Annihilation_

Emerging from the forest after about an hour, Samus saw a suspiciously familiar looking towering quasi-tri-surfaced black stone temple. It was not surprising that this was the first thing she saw of the world outside the forest as it took up most of the horizon when looked at directly. What Samus found odd, other than the nagging familiarity, was the fact that the ground surrounding the thing (building did not quite sum it up) undulated, almost as if the thing had been pushed up from underground.

Unknown to Samus was that that was exactly what had happened almost a year ago.

She scanned the big black thing and a description popped up on her visor:

The Palace: A big black thing.

Scans indicate it is a huge weapon of some sort. How it works is unknown.

Avoid.

As her full attention was on 'The Palace', Samus failed to notice the source of the sound that shall soon happen. In fact, she was looking straight at it and didn't see it until it spoke. Such is the complexity of the human brain that it can completely ignore things it doesn't want it's consciousness to worry about.

The source of the sound was Link and the sound was this:

"I take it you are the woman clad in armour stronger that my blade then."

The human brain can even negate the body's sense of touch and Samus' one did in the few seconds before Link spoke when he was attacking her with his sword.

"Excuse me?" asked Samus. Raising her arm cannon at the green-clad youth, she charged her power beam.

At that instant, Link was possessed by Farore, as within seconds otherwise he would be dead. Link's body said the one thing that would protect itself.

"Samus, don't shoot!"

And she didn't. She raised her cannon and let it fire upwards, hitting some sort of Hylian pigeon.

At the same time Link was dispossessed.

"How did you know my name?" asked Samus, now looking slightly apprehensive.

Link, whose memory of the incident was preparing to be vanquished, said plainly "divine communication" and forgot all about it. Samus also instantly forgot what Link just said and a false memory of her telling Link her name was implanted in both of them.

"By the way, I'm Link. I was sent here to greet you."

* * *

The Old Man was standing on the summit of The Palace. He had, for the past half an hour, been watching Link and Samus through his Monocle-DigiZoom Magnifier which Ridley had provided him with. Apparently they were standard issue for all Space Pirates.

Ridley was nowhere to be seen, though the Old Man knew he was in the west tower. He left just over twenty minutes ago – after being informed that the targets had met – saying that he was going to get a few enhancements for his armour.

The Old Man however, did not feel the need to shield himself further for two reasons. The first was that history said he killed Samus and the second was that the targets did not seem to be joining forces but rather were busy fighting with each other.

He was also very confident in the plan they outlined at the dawn of Chapter Eleven and tried to get Ridley to think the same way.

* * *

Link and Samus had only known each other for just over an hour now but already they had seemed to take a disliking to each other. However, Link had explained that it was of great importance that she must follow him.

It was with reluctance that Link had shown Samus to his temporary home just inside the crater of Death Mountain. 'Just inside' was probably not the right word to choose as it was deep enough to conceal the summit of The Palace and a good hundred metres of empty air above it.

This place was not where Link had been staying for the past year, that had been a room in Kakariko, but it was where he had become aware they must stay.

Samus' suits cooling systems must have been working on at least three-quarter power as they entered the crater as scans had shown that the air temperature was close to the temperature of the molten lava pools at the base of the crater. Miraculously, and Samus added the word unfortunately, Link did not seem to be even sweating in his insulated tunic which slightly less miraculously had turned red.

They came to the entrance and Samus made a short laugh that was intentionally audible to Link.

Turning round, Link gave Samus a callous look and uttered "What are you sniggering at, swalshi?"

If Samus knew that a swalshi is the female variant of a popular breed of Hylian dog then she would have been more inclined to charge her super missile and make that the penultimate thing Link said, the last being along the lines of 'Oh, crap.' Luckily, she had not been bestowed with that piece of information and instead simply retorted with "I just thought that a cave like this is a fitting place for you to call home, being so primitive in technology and intelligence and all."

Link was tempted to fire a fire arrow into her head but resisted, knowing that it would probably mean his doom. He had seen the fury of her arsenal taken out on a few creatures on the way here.

They entered the cave and saw that there was for some reason a small bed near the back.

"Any particular reason for bringing me to your humble abode?" Samus asked, trying to sound annoyed.

"Two things before I begin," started Link who looked as though he was planning on pushing Samus into the lava, "One, this is not where I usually live and two I claim the bed." Samus was about to object to the latter statement before remembering that she had a bad experience with irrational pieces of furniture.

"I have brought us here because it is a safe place for me to plan our entrance into The Palace."

"Why do we even need to go into that place? Why do I even need to listen to what you want to do? If it were up to me, I would be off this stupid planet as soon as I can find a way back to the future."

Ignoring her objections, Link continued "apparently you have experience fighting the enemy who is overlord there."

"Oh is that apparent?" jeered Samus, "Well I'll tell you something else that's apparent. The only enemy I can see around here is you, so if you don't mind I shall be leaving."

Samus headed for the entrance but Link got between her and the outside world. "I cannot allow you to leave," he was saying.

"I cannot allow you to leave," mocked Samus and then added "well I cannot allow a child like you to get in my way."

She fired a charged power beam shot at him which was going to hit him straight in the stomach. However, it stopped centimetres away from him, hitting the now visible barrier that looked like an advanced force-shield. She knew this kind of thing would not allow her or her weapons through but did not know how it got there. She resigned that she was stuck here until further notice.

"I am no child Samus Aran," said Link, "I am seventeen and have saved the world twice. If the goddesses do not wish you to leave my side, you will not leave my side."

He got into the bed and fell asleep. Samus however, found that the floor was not as doze-inducing and got her suit to inject her with a general anaesthetic.

She was asleep within seconds.


	14. Into the Gargantuan

_**Chapter Fourteen:** Into the Gargantuan_

The sky was dark, and not just because it was full of The Palace. It was close to midnight and Link was hiding in some convenient bushes close to an entrance of the aforementioned big thing. Having watched the guards for a week now, he had found that they change shifts every two hours. The next changeover was midnight.

He had stolen Samus' NCM (NaviCom Mini) after realising it had built into it what could be used to tell the time at night. He had left her alone in the cave about an hour ago and climbed down the mountain to his current position.

One of the guards made a noise that was similar to a cough mixed with a caw. The other guard walk up to him and said something in a strange language. Suddenly, the NCM beeped thrice and began to translate. Being in Link's bag, all he could hear was: "……… health sector ……… stealth …… Samus … the kid ………compromise security ………"

Link removed it from his bag just in time to hear it say: "Here come the next two. Come on, let's go, I'm shattered."

Sure enough, Link could now see four of what Samus called Space Pirates. The two that were there before were walking towards an iris in the wall where the other two had come out of. They put their arms into slots by the side of the iris for a few seconds before removing them. The one on the left inserted his head into another slot on the left and the one on the right said something which the NCM translated as: "Alpha 9 Delta". The iris dilated and the two entered before it closed again.

There was a rustle in a bush a few metres away from Link and a white wolfos emerged. After a few seconds in which one of the Pirates charged up their weapon, it was engulfed by green plasma. Within a second, the wolfos was a pile of dust.

Link was about to go back to the cave when a voice in his head stopped him. He had seen that the only way of getting into The Palace was through theses irises. He had also seen that the only way to get through an iris was by being a Space Pirate. Then came a revelation. Maybe the security system would work if he inserted severed arms and heads. It was worth a try.

He aimed an arrow at one of the Space Pirates but before firing, he noticed a small vent in the side of The Palace. He looked around and saw a small bird on top of a tree a few metres away. He fired the arrow at it and it fell. There was an audible rustle where the bird hit and the Space Pirates went over to investigate.

Link silently ran over to the vent and opened it. He slipped inside and closed the grate just as the Pirates turned round to come back.

* * *

After crawling through the vent for quite some time now, Link reached another grate. On the other side of it was a lone Space Pirate sitting with his back towards him. Link aimed an arrow through the grate at the Pirate's head and fired. Although it was a direct hit, it bounced back and the Pirate looked at the grate. Confused he got up and retrieved his weapon from the table opposite. Link quickly scurried back through the vent until he reached the place where he entered it. 

He checked to see if the guards were looking in the opposite direction and when they were he crawled out of the vent. Now he needed a diversion to get back safely. He crept up behind one and planted three bombs on the floor next to it. He ran in the opposite direction for a few seconds before they exploded simultaneously. When the smoke cleared Link looked back and saw that the other Pirate was aiming its weapon at him.

* * *

Inside the West tower, Ridley was having a new weapon fused into his armour. He had just received a field report from two Space Pirates guarding an entrance saying that it worked well. Apparently it had completely vaporised some of the local wildlife. 

Ridley was not happy however, as his scientists hadn't found a way of reducing the charge time. Ridley may have been able to cope with a second, but to fire the weapon with the destructive power he wanted, he had to charge it for ten whole seconds.

At least his armour was now resistant to all of Samus' weapons. The only thing that could damage it was the weapon that he was having fused into his armour which he had also given to the Pirates guarding The Palace.

Of course, Ridley was aware of the cliché things that happen in some fanfics so he built in an extra feature to these weapons. If the person carrying it does not have DNA patterns from the registered database, then the weapon would explode, killing all within a few metres.

* * *

Time was going in slow motion for some reason, making seconds last hours and allowing for the whole previous section of the story to be read in the space of half a second. 

Link was looking down the barrel of the Space Pirate's weapon and hoping it was out of ammo. The emotions that were going through him were similar to those that might be going through a rabbit staring at the headlights of a car. Link imagined his fate would be very similar.

In about a second, the Pirate's weapon would be charged and he would be a pile of dust on the ground, to be walked over and forgotten.

A bit longer than a second later, Link saw the Pirate release the trigger. As time was still having a tea break, Link could watch as the ball of plasma travelled toward him. It travelled toward him, like a big, green plasma thing that travels toward people. It got to within a few metres of him when it suddenly veered off to Link's left.

Link tracked it with his eyes and saw it was heading toward Samus, who had arrived just as the Pirate released the trigger. She also had a ball of orange plasma protruding from the barrel of her arm cannon. The green plasma was being longitudinally stretched now. It was moving faster now, and Link could see that it was the orange plasma that was now its target.

It hit its target and the orange plasma that was formerly protruding from Samus' weapon grew to about twice its original size and turned a lightish brown colour.

This new plasma fluctuated for a bit before shrinking and disappearing. Almost a semi-moment later, Samus fired a beam the width of her weapon and a more azure colour. It passed through the head of one Pirate and hit the other in the chest. Both were vaporised. All that was left of them was their weapons, which detecting that their current users had been terminated, exploded.

Time, coming back from his tea break, fast forwarded for the next few minutes, creating a useful way of getting out of writing the dialogue between Link and Samus where she retrieved her NCM, and where Link started to explain the security measures before Samus interjected, saying that she had been woken up by her suit computer when her NCM was more than 10m away, and that she had seen the security herself.

After that Time returned to normal.

* * *

Samus entered morph ball and rolled into the vent she had seen Link crawl out of earlier. Link followed, and after a while emerged in the room where he had shot a Space Pirate minutes before. Samus was scanning the door to gain the access codes. Once she had acquired them, she fired a power beam blast merged with the access codes. The door opened and Samus mentioned that they had about an hour and a half before the next guards would discover that their predecessors were no more, so they had to be quick. 

Link was intending to kill whoever owned this place, and if that meant reaching the summit, it might take a bit longer than an hour and a half.

The two walked through the door and entered chapter fifteen.


	15. As the Crow Flies

_**Chapter Fifteen:** As the Crow Flies_

The iris door closed behind them. They were standing in the middle of a corridor. Looking to the left, Samus could see the main iris to the outside world. Sitting on a chair near to it was an aging Space Pirate in slumber. So much for high security she thought.

Opposite the door to chapter fourteen was another, similar door. Samus fired another power beam blast infused with the access codes and this new door also opened. Telling Link to stay here, she entered.

In the room she found a few standard Zebestian storage crates, one of which was open. Looking inside Samus could see that it contained several stolen GF weapons such as a few standard issue Colt 29mm Plasma Revolvers (codenamed Python), a zero-point energy device (codenamed Gravity Gun) and several λ45 explosives (codenamed λ45 explosives).

She removed the Gravity Gun and fused it with her grapple beam, thinking it would be fun to play with after this was over. She also removed all the Pythons and λ45s and put them in one of the many holdalls on the side of the room.

Putting the holdall over her shoulder, she saw that there was a computer terminal in the corner of the room with what could be used as a data port to download any information onto her suits computer. Surprised to find that it wasn't locked, she found a map of the building and downloaded it to her suit.

* * *

"Hold this," she said as she gave him the holdall. Link looked like he was about to protest and then like he wasn't. 

Samus had superimposed the quickest route to the summit onto the map and they started to follow it. They walked down the surprisingly empty corridor for about a hundred metres until they came to another iris door. Samus opened it in the same way as before and they entered the lift. When she found out that the lift needed a code to go anywhere, she scanned it to find that the best way of overriding the code was my messing around with the wires behind the code panel.

Link pried it off with his sword and cut the wires that Samus said to. Samus then connected two wires together and the other panel, that was showing the available floors, lit up. She pressed the button for the top floor and the lift started to ascend.

It was about three floors from the top when Samus disconnected the wires that she had connected earlier. When Link asked her what she was doing she informed him that there was a ventilation shaft above the corridor at the top which they were going to go through. She blasted a hole in the roof and they climbed through it.

"Oh, very clever," snided Link, "how were you planning to get us up their then?" Samus was going to enjoy this.

She switched to her newly added Gravity Gun and used it to pick Link up and lift him to the top, where he grabbed onto the nearest thing he could, which happened to be the vent. Samus casually grappled up there and looked at Link.

"Don't ever do that again." he whimpered.

* * *

They were now at the top of the south tower. The corridor they were above was the bridge that was this tower's only connection with the central column of the colossus. About half way across the bridge the vent opened into it. As the only other option was to carry on through a moving fan, Samus pulled up the vent hatch and hung from the roof to see if there was anyone in the bridge. The only life in there was a rather large beetle, about the size of a rugby ball, walking in circles by the door. This door was a very dark grey, so if the Space Pirates hadn't changed their colour coding, they had to kill the beetle to open it. Samus told this to Link who pretended he knew this already. 

They dropped down through the hatch to the floor. Samus was surprised that they had seen no Space Pirates so far. Link however, having almost being killed by one, was thankful.

On scanning the beetle, Samus found that it had a weak underbelly that was susceptible to any form of weapon. Its blood was also a good chemical to use if you wanted to burn through the skin of a Space Pirate.

Link was swiping away at the beetle's shell, which didn't seem concerned about it. After a few seconds, Link gave up.

"Try turning it over," jeered Samus. She walked up and kicked it onto its back and it started squirming. Link gave Samus an evil look and stabbed the beetle in the stomach. A thick, sticky, green slime came oozing out of the wound.

"Give me your arrows," she ordered Link, who didn't object. She dipped them into the blood and handed them back. "It'll make them penetrate the Pirates easier."

Link pulled an empty bottle out of his bag and filled it with the beetle blood.

Samus burned the carcass to dust with a blast from her flamethrower and the door lit up blue. She fired a power beam shot at it and it reluctantly opened, as if it hadn't done so for years. According to her scans, this door hadn't been opened in over half a standard galactic century (about 58 Earth years) and was maybe three times that old.

"You said this place was only a year or so old," she pointed out to Link.

"It is. If we were standing here last year, we would be falling."

Samus' scanners did not detect any obvious signs of a lie.

If she had not thought to turn the lie detector on however, this chapter would have about two more paragraphs of them arguing about it.

Before entering through the newly opened door, or even looking through it, Samus looked up through the skylight and saw that this tower was the one with the green sphere of light above it.

She scanned it:

_Green Sphere of light. Your guess is as good as mine._

She also scanned the satellite dish below it:

_It appears that this mechanism is trying to get its power from that green thing above it. However, there does not appear to be any form of energy being relayed to it._

She got it to scan the other two dishes and spheres. The first pair she tried were out of range so she tried the other pair:

_This mechanism is receiving power from the unknown energy source hovering above it. The beam it is emitting seems to be a purification of the energy it is receiving._

By now the door had closed. She opened it again and they entered.

* * *

The room they were in was dark. Link couldn't see anything whilst Samus had switched to her night vision visor. Now she could add another two adjectives to the description: empty and huge. There appeared to be bits of broken desk scattered about the floor. Computer terminals had been ripped off the walls and there was a smashed hole in the wall, leading to another similar room. There was blood splattered about the walls and in puddles on the floor. There was what appeared to be a huge dead creature in one corner of the room. 

She lit the bits of desk with her flamethrower and used the gravity gun to suspend them in mid-air.

"What the hell is that thing?" asked Link, pointing at the corpse now the room was lit.

"Oh, just some dead, big thing. You may remove the comma if you want."

They carried on along the route for about five seconds before they heard a quiet eructation from the corner in which the body was laid. Samus scanned it and found out that it was not actually dead. Once again, the doors locked.


	16. Just some dead, big thing

Eventually...

Check out my forums for any updates. Now get on with reading!

_Chapter Sixteen: _Just some dead, big thing

The dead, big thing eructated again and started to rouse. Link was getting worried now, although he was trying not to show it. As explained before, the dead, big thing was not actually dead.

When it had fully awoken it stood up, revealing its full height of about ten feet and its genitalia. It looked similar to a black tortoise with a spiny flattened shell. There were however some differences, the most obvious being the size. Also in place of forelegs it had two long arms with three nasty looking claws on each hand. It also had a scorpionic tail with a crustaceous claw on the end. From Samus' scans, this was its vulnerable area.

The creature had not seen them so Link decided to make this permanent. He got out his bow and fired an arrow into each of the creature's eyes.

"Good idea, Connection" derided Samus, "I'm sure he'll just carry on as if nothing had happened."

What struck her as odd after saying that was that the creature actually didn't seem to notice to two arrows pronging its eyes.

Having survived one really stupid idea, Link tried another. He removed his sword, crept up unnecessarily to the creature and castrated it.

Again, the creature appeared to feel no pain.

"Just out of interest, it that knife of yours strong enough to remove this things tail?" asked Samus.

It was.

The tail fell onto the floor and crumbled into ash.

"How about the head?"

Link swiped at the head. Just as the sword was about to make contact with flesh, the creature lifted its arm and swiped back. Link only just managed to raise his shield in defence as he was hit by the arm. He hit the ground at approximately the same speed he would hit the ground if he had jumped from the top of a two storey house from early 21st century Earth.

"Ok, bad idea!" shouted Samus.

* * *

With Link lying on the floor, the creature advanced. It raised its right paw and went to slam it straight down through Link. 

Link was unconscious on the floor. Suddenly and inexplicably, time once again decided to go extremely slowly, allowing for more description and increased reaction times.

The paw was about two metres from Link.

For about ten relative seconds (1.5m of paw movement, ¼ actual seconds) Samus did nothing. If she was going to do something, she had 3.33 relative seconds to do it in. Used to the pressures of a race against time, Samus let another three of these pass by.

The paw was almost touching Link as Samus activated her grapple beam and switched to zero-point energy mode. She pulled Link out from under the creature and its paw slammed into the ground.

The beast turned round to look at Samus. Samus noticed that it also had a third concealed eye which was now open. It recognised her as the bigger threat and focused all its energy on defeating her. However, the beast was weak; with only one eye it had no sense of distance. It was also bleeding where its tail once was.

Then all of a sudden, the creature grew another tail in place of its old one. Samus charged up an ice beam shot and froze the creature in order to consider her options for a few seconds. The tail had grown back. This was also its weakest area. Therefore, the tail must be protecting something.

She decided that the best course of action was to remove the tail and plant a power bomb or two. She tried to pick up Link's Master Sword, with which she planned to slice the tail off the beast, but found it too heavy to pick up and found that zero-point energy had no effect on it. She would have to wake up Link. The creature broke out of its ice coating.

* * *

It ran towards her, like a lion chasing a metaphor as if it were a gazelle or something. It pounced. Samus rolled into her morph ball and dodged it, causing it to hit the wall and flash red, which in Samus' experience meant that it was in pain. After years of bounty hunting, she still did not understand why every single creature she fought had evolved to do that. 

Samus noticed that her suit had put a health bar for the creature near the top of her visor. She noted that when the beast hit the wall it lost about 1/3 of its health. Samus still did not understand how her suit could predict how many hits that really big creatures could take worked either.

She fired another ice beam at it so that she could think of a plan for awaking Link, but the creature hit the beam with its tail, causing the beam to bounce off and hit the ceiling above Link. Samus fired a plasma beam near the huge puddle of ice on the ceiling, the heat of which melted it and drenched Link, awakening him.

"What was that for bitch?" shouted Link, who suddenly saw the beast turn round and act as if Link was a metaphor as mentioned before. Link jumped to the right and the creature jumped past him. He turned round and saw that the tail had mysteriously grown back. Instinctively he sliced it off to the sound of a loud shriek of pain. Link removed one of the λ45s that Samus gave him from his bottomless pocket and pressed a button. He then threw it into the hole where the tail of the beast once was, just before a new tail grew over it, implanting the explosive.

"What the hell d'you do that for?" shouted Samus.

"You said they were like my bombs, so I thought that an explosion from within it would kill it."

Just as Link said those words the creature exploded, creating a large crater in the surprisingly thick floor and sending the two flying across the room.

"That is why the plan was to use my bomb." said Samus.

"I got to get me some more of those." said Link.

"Doors unlocked." said a voice played through hidden speakers in the room.

"Why is it always the same woman?" asked Samus while wiping intestine off of her suit.

* * *

The door, that was once grey, started to glow blue. Samus fired a power beam at it to open it and they entered the next room. This is the point where the narrator gets locked in the room the two left and calls the next narrator, who is waiting in the next room, to start narrating. 


	17. The Old Man The Really Long One

After much procrastination the seventeenth chapter is upon us, and it is a long one.

Last chapter I mentioned my forums. I couldn't be bothered with them basically. However, when my website goes live there will be a section in there for my fiction with an rss feed so you can stay updated with the latest news. You will be able to find the link in my profile page._Chapter Seventeen: _The Old Man / The Really Long One 

After a few months talking to the newest narrator, Link decided that awakening Samus from the plotholeine stasis she was in and to continue with their quest.

The room they were in was cylindrical, round and very circular. Along the perimeter of this room there was a generic room-sized spiral ramp that Samus had grown to recognize as the Space Pirate architectural ascending device of choice. Looking up Link saw that the room was almost conical; perhaps gherkinal would be a better word. Near the top on the wall were what looked like holes in the wall, approximately the same size as Samus in morph ball. He saw that all five of these were on a separate platform, unreachable by the ramp. From each of the five holes were wires that went up to a large iris structure in the roof, beneath which was a floating platform, about the same size as the iris, which seemed to be held up by a small flame underneath it.

What Samus saw was a standard Pirate circular ramp, probably populated by large insectoid creatures, some of which would possibly be immune to all but the right combination of missiles and beams. At the top of the room, of no special shape, were five bomb slots connected to an iris door in the roof above a floating platform. Setting off a bomb in each of the bomb slots would probably open the iris and judging by the size of the platform, it would act as an elevator to whatever was above this room once stood on with an open iris. These bomb slots were on an isolated ridge, inaccessible from the ramp. This was not a problem to Samus as the iris looked to be a viable grapple beam surface.

* * *

The duo casually walked up the ramp on the side of the room. Neither of them had apparently noticed the glass containers of metroids in the centre of the room. This was not really surprising as they were not there before the horizontal line. There were six of them surrounding a larger one which looked empty. The metroids within looked dormant, as though they were under some form of anaesthetic. There were wires coming from each metroid, the type you seen in hospitals attached to some patients.

After a perimeter's worth of ramp Samus heard the infamous screech which spread fear through the bodies of people who heard it. She looked down and saw the metroids, and what looked like a cow being inserted into large glass tube through a hole in the floor. The metroids were bashing the sides of their tanks trying to get to the sleeping cow. Suddenly, smaller holes opened in the floor of the large tank and in the floor of the individual tanks. The wires detached from the metroids and within a few seconds the metroids were in the middle tank, feeding on the newly awakened cow. For about a minute all that could be heard was the bovine equivalent of a scream and the occasional screeching of a metroid.

Then the cow was dead and the metroids returned to their tanks, letting the wires attach to them.

"What just happened?" asked Link who looked more shocked than scared.

"Metroids," said Samus and referred Link to a paragraph in chapter one. "From the looks of things, we have just witnessed feeding time. Although what the Pirates are using them for this time I don't know."

Samus jumped down to the bottom of the room and started scanning the containers and the metroids to find out what they were being used for. Link came down and saw Samus frightened for the first time. She was muttering things along the lines of "that's not possible" and "they can't be doing that" and "holy mother of Jesus".

"What's going on," asked Link.

"By the looks of it, these metroids are having their energy sucked out through these wires. The only thing possible is that they are being used for electricity. But that wouldn't make sense. I can only imagine it has something to do with the golden orbs hovering above each of the towers as seen in chapter eleven."

Link could tell that Samus was keeping something from him, but before he could force her to tell him there was a chorus of screeches and the metroids bashed into the side of their containers hard enough to smash them.

One of them flew straight towards Samus and attached itself to her head. In severe pain, she did what she was used to doing in this situation. She rolled into morph ball and laid a power bomb. A few seconds later and the bomb exploded, leaving bits of metroid innards about the floor.

Samus watched in amusement as Link flailed around with a metroid attached to his head, slowly sucking the life out of him. She dodged an oncoming metroid and then decided it would be worth saving him now. She armed her ice beam, charged and fired at the metroid, freezing it in mid air. The weight of it caused Link to fall over, shattering it.

Armed with the knowledge of these things' weakness Link equipped his bow and pulled a few ice arrows out of his quiver. He pulled back on the (wiimote whilst holding the B trigger, lol) arrows and was engulfed in a blue smoky aura. He let go and the arrows sailed through the air with all the grace of a thing that sails through the air really gracefully. They hit one of the metroids in the middle of the group of four on one side of the room. The resulting ice blast froze all four, causing them to fall to the floor and smash into a million pieces.

"Well, that was simple enough." said Link, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He had completely forgotten that Samus was hiding something from him.

* * *

The two had climbed to the top of the room now. Samus guessed that the bomb slots in the wall on the inaccessible ledge would open the door, so based on that premise she used her grapple beam attached to the door in the roof to swing to the ledge. _Yes, that is certainly a bomb slot_ she thought to herself as she rolled into morph ball and laid a bomb in it. It exploded and the bomb slot glowed blue, the wire that connected it to the door mimicking it. She moved round to the next one and did the same, and getting the same result she proceeded to do the same for each of them.

Disengaging morph ball after the final bomb slot she saw that there was no effect to activating all the slots. Looking around watched as the last three she had activated were distinguished in order. _They must be activated simultaneously_ thought Samus. Her first instinct was a power bomb in the centre of them which would put them all within its blast radius, but on second thought she remembered the time she tried that on Tallon IV, leaving her one power bomb short when she was facing one of the guardians. She shook away the painful memory of being whittled down to half an energy tank before finding a hole in the wall that contained, of all things, a box containing a whole energy tank's worth of energy and a power bomb.

"You got any more of those λ45s?" she asked Link.

"I got six left. What does it matter though, you shouted at me last time I used one?"

"Doesn't matter, I just need them. Get them out and I'll pull them up to me."

"No. Tell me what you want them for and I'll do it."

Knowing that she would have to submit to him sooner or later she replied "Fine. I need to put one in each of these holes in the wall so that they explode at the same time."

On hearing that, after seeing how Samus got up, Link got out his grappling hook, spinned it around a few times to build up momentum and threw it at the door in the roof. It latched onto a hole in the door and Link jumped and swung towards the centre. In the centre he stopped the rope swinging, climbed up it a bit, and then started it swinging again so that he could swing onto the ledge. After three swings, with enough momentum to reach the ledge, he began the final forward swing. When he was just further than the platform in the middle of the room his grapple unhooked from the hole and he started to fall. Samus saw this and let him carry on until he was near the bottom of the room, then she activated her new Zero Point energy device and slowed Link's descent. He stopped a few inches from the ground and felt himself being pulled up by some invisible force. Within a few seconds he was shaking on the ledge next to Samus.

Showing no mercy, Samus simply said, "Well go on then. Do what you came up here for. You'll find a button on the side of each of the bombs that puts it into remote mode so you can detonate them all at once. And you'll need to turn down the magnitude with the rocker switch on the side so we don't have to go to the bottom of the room just to be safe."

Having no idea what she just said Link just handed over the five bombs which Samus proceeded to follow her instructions on and insert into the bomb slots.

The two jumped down onto the platform and Samus pressed a button on the bombs' remote. There was a beeping ticking sort of sound coming from each of the bombs for a few seconds before they exploded, this time with a small blast radius. The wires coming from the slots lit up and the door above them opened. The platform shook a bit and then ascended.

The other side of the door was the outer rim of the centre tower. Looking around, Samus could see the great satellites on the smaller towers with their beams of something. Link looked down and for the first time in his life felt vertigo. All of a sudden he was being pulled back from the side by Samus, this time using her hand.

"I don't want to waste more energy saving you," she said, "now follow."

Link obeyed the woman who had saved his life twice in one chapter and stood with her on the elevator in the side of the building.

"Yeah, about that," he started, "never pick me up with that thing again."

The elevator took them to the top of The Palace nauseatingly quickly. At the top they turned round and saw in the centre of the summit a small hole, wide enough for about two people to fall down side by side Samus observed.

There was a mechanical sound coming from it and within a few seconds there emerged a head, looking away from the duo for dramatic effect. The head was shortly followed by a body, wearing a black cloak to add the aforementioned dramatic effect.

"Ganon!" Link shouted.

But it was not Ganon. The Old Man turned around so that Link could see this for himself. The Old Man laughed to himself, a sort of cliché evil laugh.

"I never thought I'd say this," said Link, "but who are you and what have you done with Ganon?"

"Ganon is irrelevant at the moment," said the Old Man. His voice had all the qualities of Ganon's, thought Link. It was the sort of voice you'd expect to hear coming from someone in control of an army.

* * *

The Old Man had spent several lifetimes trying to find the secret to eternal life, managing to do so through time travel, an important element to the future of this story. However, just when he was close to succeeding, he was killed by a man named Sgt. Cortez. Cortez was not important, as he too died within ten minutes of doing what he believed to be right to save mankind from the TimeSplitter Army. TimeSplitters were one of the Old Man's latest creations in his effort to gain immortality. None of that is important though for reasons that shall be discussed later.

What is important though it the way in with Cortez killed the Old Man, whose name unimportantly was Jacob Crow.

Crow was in his underwater lair in the early 20th century, off the coast of Scotland. Cortez stole the raw Time Crystal that was important to Crow's time travelling. Of course, Crow did not like this and started to attack. Cortez was nearly dead when he time warped back in time to help himself out in the fight against Crow. The twin Cortezes managed to kill Crow, but not before he managed to say his last word: "Rosebud". Cortez thought nothing of it and made a comment about never eating calamari again and then proceeding to save the world.

However, Crow's last word was the voice activated password for his emergency teleport that, due to a plot hole that I do not care to explain yet, sent him to a parallel universe. Crow had predicted that he may encounter a situation like that so he made arrangements, once again through the plot hole, to be resurrected.

He had been dead for over five minutes when he arrived in Hyrule. His arrangements went according to plan and his past self resurrected him before going off to get killed by Cortez. At least, that was the story he had told to Ridley.

It was all true, except the part about his past self resurrecting him, but I shall not divulge any further now.

* * *

Time, as it is well known, has two axes. Along the temporal axis, one can travel yesterwards and morrowards, or to non-chronophysicists, to the 'past' and to the 'future'. The other axis, called by most chronophysicists (3 off them) the differential axis. It basically works on the principal of all times being equal and therefore making "meanwhile, ten years ago it was raining" a grammatically correct sentence.

If one was to draw a timestring (a complex timeline) it would be five minutes on the differential axis before the destruction of that universe due to paradox that Crow escaped to a different parallel universe: The one where this story takes place, commonly referred to as the Nintenverse.

I shall not bore you with more basic metachronophysics, but shall instead get on with the story.

* * *

A moment passed, another came and stayed for much more than a moment. Samus thought it was like in one of those old Earth western movies she had seen. She was the sheriff, with her incompetent deputy at her side, looking down the dusty empty road at the bandit waiting to draw his gun and fire before she could react. Link, having not seen a western movie didn't know what to liken it to.

Samus had scanned Crow and he seemed to be unarmed, but obviously was not.

Then all of a sudden, something completely irrelevant broke the silence. A tiny wormhole (known as a maggothole, small enough only to carry sound and light waves) opened behind Samus. Out of it appeared something much larger: a can of beans from 1930s America, and a voice.

"Lennie, you crazy bastard," said the voice, "What did you do with that third can of beans?" A.N. For those of you who have not been forced to study Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, you would not have noticed the disappearing third can of beans at the beginning that he never really explains.

"That was a maggothole," said Samus, "what the hell are you doing in this building to summon something as big as a can of beans from a fictional world through one?"

She already knew the answer, but for the sake of suspense, it shall not be revealed.

"It matters not," said Crow.

"Why are you unarmed?" asked Link, deciding that the question must be asked sooner or later.

"I am prepared to die," joked Crow, in the manner of one who knows a lot about space time paradoxes.

"What already," said Samus, "you've only just been introduced! You haven't even been physically described fully!" She charged her power beam, not even considering the possibility of a trap. Of course there was not trap. She fired and it bounced off a force field around Crow that her scanners missed. Crow smiled an evil looking smile, which turned into a frown and then a look of fright as the beam bounced off Link's mirror shield and came back at him.

"This makes no sense at all," said Samus, "but he seems to be weak to your weapons."

And another maggothole appeared. Crow's voice came from the past and explained how he wasn't worried as he had already killed Samus in a trip to the future.

Link, holding his sword in front of him, charged into Crow but was bounced back.

"Not so easy, is it Link," said Crow, completely oblivious to his own voice that appeared out of thin air.

"Ok, I'm not going to worry about how you know my name, but…I have no idea what I was going to say. How do you know my name?"

"It matters not," replied Crow, "now that you see you cannot defeat me you will join me."

"Never!" shouted Link and Samus in unison.

"If you knew what we were doing here, you would know that you have no choice but to submit to us."

Confused with the usage of the words 'we' and 'us' and the sudden psychic communication she had with Link, Samus charged up her power beam. Crow was looking at her and did not notice Link aiming an arrow at his head.

Samus fired. Crow laughed at the inexplicable trajectory of the beam, which seemed to be headed towards Link. Link fired his arrow, which went through the power beam, absorbing all its energy. This pierced Crow's shield and hit him between the eyes, killing him instantly.

"I don't know what he was trying to do here," Samus lied," but it must have been pretty powerful if it could summon two maggotholes, one of which was capable of enmatteratilating a fictional object, and removing it from it's original source."

"I have no idea what that means," said Link, "but it must be bad. Good think it's over now, what with that guy dead and all."

"Wrong," said Samus, "we still need to stop what ever was happening here."

"Well observed Samus," said Ridley who had just landed behind them, "I don't want to kill you this time. I want you to join us."


	18. Interlude: Cleaning up the confusion

I have been told that this latest chapter is hard to follow. Sorry!  
If anything is confusing don't hesitate to email(christianjdavies at googlemail dot com) or PM me if there is anything you don't understand up to now. I will then post them in this chapter.

Confusing bits so far:  
It doesn't really matter who Crow is. He is the bad guy from TimeSplitters3 and his only relevance to the story is that he wanted eternal life.  
As for the maggotholes, what he and Ridley were doing is so powerfull that it is ripping apart the fabric of spacetime. The upcoming uber timetravel that I will not mention any more is also causing this.  
The first maggothole: if you have read Of Mice and Men, there are three cans of beans opened, two eated and then the main characters went to sleep. I just wanted to include that dissapearing one somewhere.  
As for the second one, somewhere in one of the previous chapters I had the Old Man tell ridley that he had already seen his future self kill Samus.

As for the bad guys wanting the good guys to join them, you'll have to wait and see what I'm planning with that. It relates directly to the function of the Palace.

Sorry that the paradoxes are confusing. I'm planing on explaining that in the final chapters of the story. 


End file.
